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Torlakian

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Torlakian is the name used for the Slavic dialects spoken in Southern and Eastern Serbia, Northwest Republic of Macedonia (Kratovo-Kumanovo) and Northwest Bulgaria (Vidin-Bregovo). Some linguists classified it as the fourth dialect of Serbo-Croatian language (with Shtokavian, Chakavian and Kaykavian) and today as the second Serbian language (with Shtokavian) dialect. In Bulgaria, these dialects are considered as western Bulgarian dialects. It is not standardized, and its subdialects significantly vary in some features.

Contents

Classification

Some Croatian (like Milan Rešetar and Dalibor Brozović) and Serbian linguists (like Pavle Ivić) classify Torlakian as an old Shtokavian dialect, referring to it as "Prizren-Timok dialect"[Pavle Ivić, Dijalektološka karta štokavskog narečja], because some subdialects use word što for "what" (but that is also a feature of Bulgarian and Macedonian). However, some subdialects use word kvo (same as Bulgarian kvo (informal) and kakvo (formal). Some linguists in Bulgaria (Stoyko Stoykov, Rangel Bozhkov) classify Torlakian as a "Belogradchik-Trn" dialects of Bulgarian language and also claim that Torlakian should be classified outside of shtokavian area.

Notes on speech

With the standard language of Serbia being based on Eastern Herzegovina dialects (but Ekavian speech of northern Serbia), the Macedonian language in Prilep (west central), and the Bulgarian language in Veliko Tǎrnovo county (central-east Bulgaria), Torlakian is left with no official status anywhere. As such, there is no "standard" Torlakian. Arguably the "purest" Torlakian is spoken in Romania where indigenous Slavs known as Krašovani (Krashovans), a mixture of original settler Slavs and later settlers from Timočka Krajina (present day Serbia and Montenegro) have escaped the influence of a standardized language which has existed in Serbia ever since a republic was created following the defeat of the Ottomans. In each other region - the Slavic countries - the speech of the locals will still be largely influenced by the standard language, particularly when a new word or concept is introduced.

Features

Some of the features of Torlakian clearly show how Macedonian yields to Bulgarian, and they both in turn blend into Serbian language, respectively in the north-west and the west.

Vocabulary

Basic Torlakian vocabulary shares most of Slavic roots with Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, but it also contains a number of borrowed words from Turkish, Romanian and Albanian instilled during the course of time. Also, it preserved many words which in the "major" languages became archaisms or shifted meaning. Like other features, vocabulary is inconsistent across subdialects, i.e. a Krashovan need not necessarily understand a Goranac.

Cases lacking inflections

Macedonian and Bulgarian are on record as being the only two modern Slavic languages to have lost virtually the entire noun case system, with nearly all nouns spoken in the surviving nominative case. That is the case with Torlakian dialect as well; in the north-west, the instrumental merges into the genitive. The locative and the genitive in turn merge into the nominative; further South, all inflections disappear, and the meaning is determined solely by prepositions.

Lack of phoneme /h/

A unique feature of Macedonian language, Torlakian and a number of Serbian dialects compared with all other Slavic languages is that, technically, there is no /h/. The appearance of the letter h in the alphabet is reserved mostly for loanwords, and toponyms within Macedonia but outside of the standard language region. In Macedonian, this is the case with eastern towns such as Pehčevo. In fact, the Macedonian language is based in Prilep, Pelagonia and words such as thousand and urgent are iljada and itno in standard Macedonian but hiljada and hitno in Serbian. This is actually a part of an isogloss, a dividing line separating Prilep from Pehčevo in Macedonia at the southern extreme, and reaching central Serbia, (Šumadija) at a northern extreme. In Šumadija, local folk songs may still use the traditional form of I want being oću compared with hoću as spoken in Vojvodina.

Syllabic /l/

Torlakian has preserved much of the ancient syllabic /l/ which, like /r/, can serve the nucleus of a syllable. This is still the case in the Czech and Slovak language. In standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, the syllabic /l/ eventually became /u/ or /o/. In Bulgarian, it became preceded by the vowel represented by ъ (/ɤ/ or /ə/), to separate consonant clusters. Not all Torlak subdialects preserved syllabic /l/ to the full extent, but it is reflected either as full syllabic or in various combinations with [ə], [u], [ɔ] or [a]. Naturally, the /l/ becomes velarized in most such positions, giving /ɫ/.[Josip Lisac, Osnovne značajke torlačkoga narječja]

Torlakian Krašovan (Karas)
Northern (Svrljig)
Central (Lužnica)
Southern (Vranje)
Western (Prizren)
Serbian standard
Bulgarian
Macedonian
English wolf (have) baked tear yellow

Cultural Marginalization and Ethnic Affiliation

The regional name once used by many people in the Torlakian-speaking region was Torlaci (Torlaks). However, except for mutual understanding, Torlakian speakers seldom had other common ethnic or national consciesness, apart from being Slavs and, mostly, Christians. The borders in the region were frequently shifting before the Ottoman conquest among Byzantine, Serbian and Bulgarian rulers. With Ottoman influence ever weakening, the increase of nationalist sentiment in the Balkans in late 19th and early 20th century, and the redrawing of national boundaries after Balkan wars and World war II, the traditional Torlakian-speaking region had been split. As a result, Torlakian has become a minority in three countries at once.

Today, there is no state-sanctioned education in Torlakian language or culture, and the usage of both the language and the regional name Torlaci is gradually vanishing. Torlakian is now seen in Serbia—and to a degree in Macedonia and Bulgaria—as an uneducated and provincial dialect of the dominant language, and most Torlakian speakers have accepted Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian as their cultural identities, supplanting Torlakian culture. Also, among the traditional speakers of Torlakian are the non-Serb Slavs of Kosovo such as the Muslim Gorani and Catholic Janjevci, whose ethnic affiliations are appropriated by neighboring nations.

Literature

Literature written in Torlakian is rather sparse, as the dialect has never been an official state language, and for the most part of the history literacy in the region was limited to Eastern Orthodox clergy, which chiefly used Old Church Slavonic in writing.

One of the earliest literary monuments influenced by Torlakian dialects is Manuscript from Temska from 1762 in which its author Kiril Zhivkovich from Pirot considered his language "Simple Bulgarian".

Serbian writer Bora Stanković used a lot of Torlakian dialect in his novels, which describe the life of people in Southern Serbia in early 20th century. Comedian writer Stevan Sremac, although born in Vojvodina, spent a portion of his life in southern Serbia, and his novels Zona Zamfirova and Ivkova slava depict the mentality and language of its inhabitants.

The recent screening of the film Zona Zamfirova by director Zdravko Šotra attracted huge popularity in Serbia and Montenegro. However, many spectators, especially from northern Serbia, commented that "the film was good but it really needs subtitles".

References

General references

Footnotes

See also

 

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